More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Sometimes a tragedy breaks a person,” Lucius says. “Sometimes they will never be whole again.”
“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?”
“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?”
It snowed hard all night, and when I peeked out the window this morning, everything was covered in a thick fluffy blanket, all white and pure, erasing everything else—footprints and roads, any sign of people. It’s like the world’s been reborn, all fresh and new.
I think everything must have a soul and a memory, even tigers and roses, even snow. And, of course, old Shep, who spends his days sleeping by the fire, eyes closed, paws moving, because he’s still a young dog in his dreams. How can you dream if you don’t have a soul?
My favorite place to hide is Mama and Papa’s closet. I like the feeling of their clothing brushing my face and body, like I’m walking through a forest thick with soft trees that smell like home: like soap and woodsmoke and the rose-scented lotion Mama sometimes uses on her hands. There is a loose board in the back of the closet that I can swing out and crawl through; then I come out in the linen closet in the hall, under the shelves with extra sheets, towels, and quilts. Sometimes I sneak through the other way and go into their closet and watch Mama and Papa while they sleep. It makes me feel
...more
The Devil’s Hand, people called it, the ledge of rock that stuck up out of the ground like a giant hand, fingers rising from the earth. Haunted land, people said. A place where monsters dwelled. The soil was no good, all clay and rocks,
She’d done the laundry, cooked the meals, nursed the children. People even said she’d bedded down with Joseph Harrison, lived with him for a time like a wife. She was an Indian woman who rarely spoke and wore clothes made from animal skins—that’s what people said. Some said that she was half animal herself: that she had the power to transform into a bear or a deer. Martin remembered hearing about her from his own father; he said she used to live in a cabin up beyond the Devil’s Hand, and people from town would go to see her when
“The stories you heard, they’re just stories. People in town love their stories, you know that as well as I do. It was just Father, Constance, Jacob, and I. There was no woman in the woods.”
The truth was, he believed he was the luckiest man on earth to have these two for a wife and daughter—it was like getting to live with fairies or mermaids, some breathtakingly beautiful creatures he was not meant to understand fully.
He blamed the ledgy soil and barren fields, where almost nothing would grow; the water that tasted of sulfur. It was as if the land itself dared anything to stay alive.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God, just that Martin never believed that God might listen to him.
“You must never argue with a person experiencing an episode of madness. It will only serve to make matters worse.”
The snowflakes were spinning, drifting, doing their own drunken pirouettes, illuminated by the headlights
She took stories very seriously. She got on these kicks where only one story would do, and you’d have to read it to her over and over until she had every word memorized. And then, when she wasn’t being read to, it was like a part of her stayed stuck inside the story. She’d leave trails of breadcrumbs around the house; build little houses out of mud, sticks, and bricks; and she would constantly be whispering to herself and her old rag doll, Mimi, about which way the wolf had gone, or if the frog really could be a handsome prince.
“Part of the trick to finding a lost thing,” her mother once told her, “is discovering all the places it’s not.”
“Mom!” she called as loud as she could. Ridiculous, really. The snowy landscape seemed to absorb all sound; it felt as if she were yelling into cotton batting.
Over the years, the woods had been encroaching on the house and yard, moving closer bit by bit, threatening to overtake their little white farmhouse. The trees were too close together, it was harder to navigate here,
“Young Reverend Ayers looks at a lake and sees only his own reflection in it; that is what God is to him. He does not see the creatures that live down deep, the dragonflies that hover, the frog on the lily pad.” Auntie’s face was full of pity and scorn as she shook her head and spat tobacco juice again. “His heart and mind are closed to the true beauty of the lake, the place where all its magic lies.”
“You always say that death is not an ending, but a beginning. That the dead cross over to the world of the spirits and are surrounding us still.”
“Each photo is like a novel I can never open,” Gary had explained once. “I can hold it in my hand and only begin to imagine what’s inside—the lives these people might have led.”
“So there are really no other books about her?” He gave her a sympathetic shake of the head. “It’s surprising, I know. I mean, her story has all the makings of a blockbuster movie—heartbreak, mystery, the undead, gory murder—but the only folks who ever come around asking more are grad students, people who are into the occult, and the occasional oddball drawn to the case because of all the gruesome details.”
It was as if he were falling, tumbling, spinning, down, down, all the way to the bottom of the well.
I’m afraid I’ve lost something,” I told her. “Sometimes things have a way of turning up once we stop looking for them,” Amelia said, her eyes dancing with light. “Do you not find that to be true?” “I suppose you’re right.”
“Amelia has told us so much about you,” they chirped as they led me through the parlor, with its ornate furniture and oil paintings on the walls, and into the dining room, where the table with a pressed white tablecloth was all laid out with a fine lunch—little sandwiches cut into triangles, potato salad, pickled beets. The places were set with bone china, crystal glasses full of something that bubbled. The wallpaper was dark blue with flowers that seemed to wink and sparkle. “She has?” I sat down and began serving myself as food was passed to me, wondering what Amelia had been thinking—how
...more
As a child, I discovered and created dozens of hiding places by loosening bricks and floorboards, making secret compartments behind the walls. There are some hiding places that I am convinced no one could ever find.
It’s the monster. The monster is real, and it’s here, in the house.
There are doorways, gates, between this world and the world of the spirits. One of these doorways is right here in West Hall.
He remembered handing her the Jupiter marble he’d just won from Lucius when they were children—how she’d been so beautifully radiant that he’d given it over without even thinking; he’d have given her anything then, same as he would now. She was his great adventure; his love for her had taken him places he’d never dreamed of going.
Behind him, the house watched. Sara slept, dreaming her mad dreams.
The slanted shadows of the slate gravestones beside hers watched, seemed to shift impatiently in the moonlight: her infant brother, grandfather, grandmother (for whom Gertie was named), and uncle, watching, wondering, What are you doing to our little Gertie? She’s one of us now. She doesn’t belong to you.
Sara smiled down at him, moving her head from side to side like a snake. Her skin glowed in the moonlight, as if she were made of alabaster.
All Katherine could hear was the sound of their breathing, their grunts as they moved up the hill. There were no car sounds, no distant sirens or train whistles. The world was eerily silent, all the sound muffled, as if everything had been swaddled in cotton wool.
The trees were bent and twisted, the branches weighted down with snow. She felt the trees were watching her, a terrible army that stood in rows and reached for her with gnarled fingers.
They were slow and steady, coming toward her. Worse still, there was a little scrape with each step, a horrible shuffle. She turned and ran in the other direction, not daring to turn on her light, hands raised protectively in front of her as she groped helplessly through the darkness.
Once awakened, a sleeper will walk for seven days. After that, they are gone from this world forever.
